Category: Writing

Writing about writing, autobiography, cross posting selected work from other places.

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Writing

August Heat Wave

Part of the shore of Lake Macbride after continued drought conditions.

It is supposed to get hot during Iowa summer, yet not like this. On Wednesday and Thursday, ambient temperatures climbed to nearly 100 degrees with heat indexes approaching 120. I got outside shortly after dawn and walked along the lake shore. Neighbors were also on the trail early to beat the heat. The air was like soup. I spent most of the days indoors after walking and tending the garden.

August is almost a five week month. The writing I have done for Blog for Iowa is helping me get in practice to take up my autobiography again after Labor Day. My readership on this site after cross posting has not been as good as usual. Perhaps that is because my long-time readers are used to a different kind of writing. That’s okay. The small stipend I received to cover a vacation helped pay for necessary, existential things around the house. Things like pumping the septic tank.

I asked my friends on social media what book I should read next. There were plenty of suggestions. I picked The Circle of Reason by Amitov Ghosh, to be followed by A Fever In The Heartland by Timothy Egan. If you have reading suggestions, please leave a comment. Rarely has someone recommended something that I didn’t evaluate and read it.

It occurs to me I haven’t been to the farmer’s market in a couple of years. As I scaled up the garden, I needed less outside produce. I can’t imaging going to the orchard for apples as my trees have more than I can harvest before they fall. The pear tree is keeping us in sweet fruit, so I skipped all the commercial berries, peaches, nectarines and the like in favor of eating from our yard.

The heat is not good for septuagenarians. I feel healthy, yet realize I have to take it easy on working outdoors when it’s hot and humid. All the indoors time has not been particularly good for me, yet I’m able to process vegetables and fruit and cross things off my electronic to-do list. I look forward to autumn.

More and more I feel like a survivor. My parents and grandparents are gone, and I never had an excessive number of friends when I lived in Davenport before 1970. My political friends are aging and dying. I don’t feel like driving, except when I have to get groceries or run an errand. I need a haircut.

My spouse has been at her sister’s home for the last month, so I do what I want indoors. Notably, the radio has been on whenever I want to listen. Our child has their own life, which increasingly doesn’t involve parents. All of this means I am forced to deal with aging in America, which includes a large rasher of loneliness. I’ll be fine. As a writer, I crave being alone with my thoughts and writing.

The pattern of a hot August lives in memory. Living in this week’s excess heat hasn’t followed any traditional pattern. We have a new air conditioner so that’s a plus. (I raise a toast to Willis Carrier, the inventor of air conditioning). Except for dairy products, there is no reason to leave the house. Some say I should give up dairy products, but I’m not ready. When I went outside to get the mail, the neighborhood was exceedingly quiet. So quiet, it was eerie.

I can see the end of this heat wave and it gives me hope. Soon my spouse will be home and we’ll get back to whatever passes for normal. We survived the coronavirus pandemic without contracting COVID-19. We’ll survive this.

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Writing

No Off-Years

Johnson County Democrats at a summer parade. Year unknown.

The Johnson County Democrats created a political campaign called “No Off-Years.” In a recent email, State Senator Zach Wahls explained:

I’m reaching out to invite you to join our “No Off-Years” campaign – a movement that goes beyond the elections every two years and focuses on doing the important organizing work that will turn Iowa blue again.

Our democracy thrives when we, the people, are actively involved in shaping its path. It’s not just about rallying before elections – it’s about keeping our momentum going consistently. That’s the idea behind “No Off-Years.”

Traditionally, we’ve concentrated on election periods, but I believe Democrats and anyone who values progress must stay engaged throughout the year. We need to foster lasting change, build connections, and ensure our voices are heard, no matter the season.

Email from State Senator Zach Wahls, Aug. 16, 2023.

A local organizer from Solon, got down to brass tacks while promoting training for a September canvass:

This is the path forward to better governance in the state of Iowa. We need to knock on doors and talk to our neighbors about why we think it is important support democratic candidates and really turn out and vote in huge numbers.

Email from Seth Zimmerman, Aug. 14, 2023.

What I’m hearing is Democrats developed special messaging focused on identifying where voters are politically, and encouraging them to join the mainstream Democrats in turning out for the 2024 general election.

Whatever No Off-Years becomes, I support the effort unequivocally. So should readers.

My friends and I have been talking about how to support the effort. Our small coterie of the 70-plus crowd has been debating whether to walk turfs to knock on doors at all. If they do so, some need a walker and there are various kinds from which to choose. Our theory is if one is door-knocking with a walker, 1). a person can sit and rest when needed, and 2). we might get a few sympathy votes. Making phone calls to friends and neighbors makes more sense for us than knocking doors, although that has its issues. Our conclusion in numerous telephone conversations is the next generation needs to step up and manage most of the in-person part of this campaign.

It is important to note that the main purpose of pre-election canvassing is to target and identify potential voters for our candidates, then get them out to vote. I recall the first Obama campaign during the general election. Our neighborhood organizer had a well-annotated list of everyone in the neighborhood and crossed them off once they committed to voting for Obama or said they wouldn’t. As election day approached, we were able to assess each uncommitted person on the list and make a last-ditch effort to persuade them before the polls closed. We didn’t perceive this as rallying before the election, but rather dotting our i’s and crossing t’s to bring every possible voter to the polls.

Iowa Democrats have bottomed out in our election of candidates in federal, state and local races. There is a need to change that going forward if we want to be a viable party that attracts new people. The No Off-Years campaign is worth trying. After all doing nothing is a worse option.

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Writing

Take Your Medicine, Watch Iowa Press

Johnson County Democrats at the 2022 Solon Beef Days parade.

In an email exchange with a friend, I asked whether they would attend the Iowa State Fair on Saturday when the two Democratic candidates other than Joe Biden were scheduled to appear at the Des Moines Register Soapbox. They said yes, and would bird dog some of the Republicans as well.

Had I known Semafor journalist Dave Weigel would be there, I might have driven to the state capitol for a chance to meet him.

Thursday, on their way to the state fair, Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz stopped by Iowa Press to record the following episode.

In my last two posts, I wrote about whether the abortion dog would hunt in Iowa. The topic came up when Stephen Gruber-Miller of the Register had this question:

Stephen Gruber-Miller: Iowa republicans this summer passed a ban on abortion at about six weeks into a pregnancy.

I’m curious, as you’re talking to members of the Democratic Party around the state who are recruiting candidates, who are trying to encourage people to run for office, is that something that comes up as a motivator for people to run for office?

Hart: Well, absolutely.

I think always when you are recruiting for candidates and as people are considering running for office, it’s the issues that often drive them.

And this is an issue that is a great motivator not only because of the fact that this law is unpopular, that people recognize that it’s not very workable, that to have a law where decisions are made at six weeks where most women don’t even know they’re pregnant, that that just does not work.

And so, issues are really important to people and they will step up accordingly because it’s far reaching.

It affects how many OBGYNs are attracted to work in this state when we already have a shortage.

It affects women’s health care in general.

And so, these are issues that are important to people and motivate them to run.

Iowa Press Transcript Aug. 11, 2023.

Whenever our Democratic leaders appear on Iowa Press, we should tune in. Not because it’s great television (it often isn’t) but because if we ever want to dig out from Republican dominance in the state we have to have a common platform from which to make our campaigns. Watching the party leader, and a Democratic governor in Iowa to stump for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris is the kind of boilerplate information we must assimilate.

Make sure you caffeinate before watching this program.

Categories
Living in Society Writing

How Do Iowa Democrats Proceed?

State Senator Bob Dvorsky waving at the cameraman in the Solon Beef Days parade, July 2013.

In 2006 I drove from work in Cedar Rapids to the Democratic campaign office in Iowa City once a week to make phone calls for Dave Loebsack. Staffer Tyler Wilson had a stack of papers with the names of people for me to call. That was a time when people would take a phone call from a political canvasser and have a discussion. I fondly recall the flip phone I used to make those campaign calls.

During the calls, I found Democrats had voted for Republican Jim Leach. They had had it after his support for the George W. Bush administration and would vote Democratic in 2006. By doing so, Dave Loebsack was elected to the U.S. Congress where he served from 2007 until 2021. It was a win: clean, pure and simple.

Chet Culver was elected governor that year but it was anything but a clean win. There was dissatisfaction among Democrats over the conservative selection he and lieutenant governor candidate Patty Judge represented. The vast geography, sparsely sprinkled with Democratic voters, had spoken in the primary. They didn’t want some lefty like Mike Blouin, Sal Mohammad, or Ed Fallon as chief executive officer of the state.

The run up to the 2006 election was a heady time for Iowa Democrats. The feeling culminated in 2008 with Barack Obama winning the nomination for president and carrying Iowa in the general election. The sparkle went off those years quickly. Loebsack won reelection. Culver did not when Terry Branstad re-emerged as the Republican gubernatorial candidate in 2010. Obama’s margin eroded by the time of his re-election in 2012. Since then, it has been all Republican in Iowa, culminating in the trifecta they won in the 2016 general election. Since then, they added to their majority.

What lesson does the ten-year period between 2006 and 2016 have to teach us? I’m sure many people have thought about this and have opinions. Here’s mine.

There is no returning to 2006 or 2008. With the rise in campaign technology beginning with the Howard Dean campaign in 2004, how campaigns were conducted changed. Obama brought the technology of campaigns together and we had an edge on Republicans. That didn’t last long.

In the 2012 campaign for Iowa House District 73, I used what I had learned from Obama about targeting voters. I soon discovered our opponent was targeting the exact same voters during canvasses. I noticed Jeff Kaufmann driving his canvassers around Mechanicsville and in other places on multiple occasions during the campaign. Sometimes I waited until the Kaufmann canvasser finished before making my pitch to the same voter. They seemed to get there first.

Technology is no longer an edge for Democrats. If one reads how the Trump campaign used data aggregation during their elections, and how they micro-targeted voters, they surpassed whatever Obama did in that regard. That may be because they viewed campaigns as a money-generating operation more than a traditional political campaign.

The effect of the pandemic is clear: it created isolation as we dodged COVID-19. Isolation served Republican interests. It unified them like never before and people I had known for years as inactive voters now activated as Republicans.

Working a campaign’s voter database is important. The luster of it faded into a drudgery of making calls and knocking doors. It seems like the wrong direction to perpetuate the idea of year-around calling and door knocking. I agree, there are no off years. I don’t agree using the same crooked sawhorse to build the same obsolete operation. Democrats must focus on winning the next election instead.

Leadership is important. Jennifer Konfrst, Zach Wahls, Sarah Trone Garriott, J.D. Scholten, and others represent the future of Iowa Democrats. Yeah, I know Wahls rubbed his fellow elected officials the wrong way while minority leader. That happened yet Wahls retains excellent prospects for leadership. If the future of the party is based on doing known things only, Democrats have no hope. Who else besides younger members of the elected cohort will lead? The correct answer is no one: we’ll get lost in the wilderness. For the Israelites, that was forty years. There is no promised land of politics today.

The electorate has changed and is changing. People are losing interest in politics. Young Iowans appear to be trending conservative. I see a lot of DeSantis support among Iowa Republicans. The open question is whether Iowa will be a decider in their primary contest. We’ll see what happens in 2024, but if it’s a rematch between Biden and Trump, I predict voters won’t turn out like they did in 2020.

The path forward for Democrats is engagement in society. I don’t mean in politics. Being seen on the library board, at K-12 functions, at the town festival planning committee, and other public spaces is exceedingly important. It is where people of differing political views meet and discuss our politics. For me, that is the path forward few are discussing in August 2023.

Would love to hear your thoughts about the path forward for Iowa Democrats. Leave a brief comment on this post if so inclined.

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Writing

Who Knew It Would Change That Fast?

Firewood left on the state park trail.

When I retired the first time in July 2009, there was an office party with a sheet cake at the transportation and logistics company. The founder’s son telephoned me with well wishes. I wasn’t done working at age 57, yet knew where I worked for the previous 25 years would be seen only in the rear-view mirror. I never looked back.

When I retired for the second time, in April 2020 during the pandemic, I had little idea that would be it. Our household managed to avoid COVID-19 and my health was better than it had been for a long time, and still is. Funny how when you stop being with people, fewer upper respiratory diseases are contracted. Now that the coronavirus is normalized, I thought there would be something next. So far, most of my work has been centered around writing and home life. There has been no next and I need one.

With five COVID-19 vaccinations, I am as protected as a person can get. Recently, most friends who contract the virus don’t die from it unless there are complicating health factors. It seems a lot of people continue to test positive for COVID-19. The virus is our permanent companion and a reminder of our mortality.

I visit the doctor’s office more frequently, although that is partly because I have extra time available. I know there are benefits included with Medicare that have no co-pays. I press the clinic to deliver those services. Based on their current financial condition, they could use the revenues. The end result is my health seems closely monitored and I’m ready for what’s next.

So what am I waiting for? In part, for the second coming:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst   
Are full of passionate intensity.

Of course, this is William Butler Yeats from The Second Coming. In a similar and more personal way, I wrote about things falling apart to the chair of the county Democratic Party after our last central committee meeting, “I haven’t found anyone to replace me on the central committee yet. There is almost no interest in doing extra things in politics or anything else. We, as a society, didn’t used to be this way.” While Yeats was writing about World War I, a lot of anarchy has been loosed in society in 2023. There is not a lot of visible conviction.

I’ll get through this patch of anarchy and find passionate intensity again, no doubt. I just wish I had realized earlier how fast everything would change.

Categories
Writing

Heat of the Day

Kirby’s Moving Company van on July 30, 2023.

While moving someone across Des Moines the last few days, the ambient temperatures have been exceedingly hot… close to 100 degrees some days. I drank a lot of water and took frequent breaks from work.

On Sunday I was present for the second truckload of stuff heading to the new place. Being a long-time transportation person, I hung with the crew most of the day, helping load, then unload the stuff. It was kind of them to allow a septuagenarian weakling to be a small part of the operation.

The owner served three tours in Operation Iraqi Freedom, so I compared notes about being in the military. He said the first tour he dined solely on Meals – Ready to Eat (MREs) for 29 days, which I found to be appalling. I mean, for as much money as the U.S. spent on that war, they could at least have furnished a mess crew with provisions to prepare meals. From time to time, someone hunted a deer and the dried the meat into jerky. At least they had that to look forward to.

I made it a point to talk to each crew member. At the loading location there were more crew members, some of whom had another job in the afternoon. At the unloading point there were three of them, plus me. While I’m not as strong as I used to be, it was great hanging out with strong, young men and unloading the truck.

The new place is a 100-year-old home with everything that means. The house isn’t standard anything and that created some challenges. There will be a process of working through them. The laundry equipment is in the basement where I could envision a homemaker working a wringer washer like my aunt did. Luckily the current machine is a couple upgrades from a wringer washer. The unusual layout could be nice once all the settling in is accomplished.

Tomorrow I start posting at Blog for Iowa for the month of August. I plan to cross post here, so stay tuned!

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Writing

High Summer in Iowa

Fennel, patty pan squash, green beans, cucumbers, zucchini, cauliflower, and snow peas from the garden on July 11, 2023.

Photographs of garden vegetables serve as therapy. Therapy to get me to write and post more often. The harvest of vegetables has been better than any year I remember. It’s not even tomato and pepper season!

The biggest writing project I’ve had in a while is finished and ready to post Thursday on multiple sites. After that, I’m covering a vacation on Blog for Iowa in August. Then, I’ll return to my autobiography. Like the concertina that opens the Broadway play Carnival, it’s time to get the writer’s squeeze box going.

There is nothing wrong with just being. When I walk on the state park trail most mornings, I listen for birds, observe where sunlight and shade fall, and feel cobwebs draped across the trail caught on my skin. There are many challenges in life. That half hour is a time to let them go and concentrate on being here.

Afternoon ambient temperatures now reach into the 90s. Except to check the garden, I stay indoors when it is so hot. We are fortunate to be able to afford air conditioning. Once the household chores are caught up, I can sit at my table and write. I’ve been doing more of it now that high summer has arrived in Iowa.

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Writing

Zucchini Bread from a Church Cookbook

Zucchini bread, June 30, 2023.

The garden is producing zucchini, so much there is pressure to do something with it. Zucchini bread is a traditional way to use the excess… some of it, anyway.

Zucchini bread is a seasonal dish predicated on having a surplus of the vegetable. Home cooks don’t usually go out and buy zucchini. Confronted with garden reality, or a gift from a friend, there is an urgency to do something with it before it spoils.

I reached for recipes from my childhood neighborhood during the 1950s through ’70s. The recipe I found didn’t really work in 2023.

JoAnn Ehrecke submitted a recipe for zucchini bread to the Family Favorites cookbook published by Holy Family Parish, Davenport Iowa in 1977. It used four cups of shredded zucchini, which is a lot. I had been to the Ehrecke home at least once while I was in school, so the recipe came with a positive vibe. Not only is it a product of the 1970s, it is set in that time. I followed the recipe with some adjustments to accommodate vegan eaters and modern times. The result was a dense, sweet loaf, more like cake than bread. We’ll use it, but won’t return to this experimental recipe.

There were problems:

While I knew to put the grated zucchini in a tea towel and press the excess moisture out, there was no such instruction in the recipe. If I hadn’t performed this basic culinary task the loaves would have been a disaster of moisture.

My typical egg replacement is applesauce. I think the recipe relies on the leavening quality of eggs to give it a rise. Applesauce added flavor, but not leavening. Applesauce also tends to be a substitute for oil in recipes, although in our vegan cornbread recipe it serves as an egg.

Along those lines, 1-1/2 teaspoons of baking soda and 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder did not seem like enough leavening. The crumb wasn’t a crumb at all. More like a gooey, sweet mass with a crust. There are positive qualities in that, but it is not a bread.

Finally, the baking time of 50-60 minutes was too short. The 325 degree oven worked, yet it took longer. A toothpick did not come out clean until 90-100 minutes. When I cooled and cut into a loaf, it was exceedingly moist inside. The flour taste was gone and the sweetness of the sugar and flavor of apples and cinnamon stood out. That part was good.

The saving grace of this result was a loaf that could be used as a dessert. Cut a thick slice and re-heat it in the microwave or fry it to make a crispy crust. Drizzle with apricot preserves, honey, or your favorite jam, add in-season fruit like raspberries, or pour on a little chocolate ganache. It would be good to go for regular or formal dining.

The path to this dessert was unexpected. Recipes in old church cookbooks assume a lot, much of it lost in the decades since that culture thrived. In any case, we’ll have dessert for a week and I used up the three largest zucchinis. Now what shall I do with today’s crop of zucchini?

Categories
Writing

Newspaper Writing

Editor’s Note: This is one of 100 newspaper articles written for the North Liberty Leader, The Solon Economist, and the Iowa City Press Citizen beginning in 2014. The North Liberty Leader stopped publication in early 2022. The Solon Economist remains on the bubble. This is an example of the collaborative type of writing produced with my newspaper editors. The whole experience of freelancing was beneficial if low-paid.

Iowa City Community School District board meeting on Jan 28, 2014. Photo by the author.

Van Allen school to be expanded
Four new classrooms will serve 100 additional students

By Paul Deaton

IOWA CITY (Feb. 5, 2014) – Paintings by Van Allen and Penn Elementary School students on the walls of the Iowa City Community School District (ICCSD) school board meeting were a colorful backdrop as Superintendent Stephen Murley and the board held brief discussions during an equally brief meeting on Jan. 28.

The board held the second of three readings of Appendix 9 , the ICCSD capital projects planning and approval process document that guides the board in its oversight and implementation of the district’s facilities master plan. The long-range plan was adopted on July 23, 2013, and proposes to spend an estimated $252 million on capital improvement projects during a 10 year period. Included in the plan is an addition to Van Allen Elementary School in North Liberty.

Following the formal meeting, the board’s Operations Committee met, and began with an update on the Van Allen design project by representatives of the architectural firm Neumann Monson and Van Allen Principal Pat Brown.

On Dec. 17, 2013, the Iowa City school board approved a project design expenditure of $123,250 for Van Allen. The design was to include additions to the current structure, containing four classrooms to house approximately 100 additional students. A committee of staff volunteers worked with Neumann Monson during the design development phase of the project. Three schematic designs were evaluated, with a final preference for additions to existing pods two (on the East side of the building housing Kindergarten through second grade) and three (on the West side of the building housing grades three through six. The design would create about 5,600 square feet of new space and fall within the approved budget of $1.68 million.

Principal Brown explained the criteria the committee developed for the addition.

“One of the things we’d like to do is to continue, as much as possible, is (keeping) like grades together so that we can group our first grades together, second grades together. Our teams do a lot of collaboration in their planning and delivery of instruction. It works much better when we keep those grades together,” she said.

Brown said another important criterion was flexibility of classroom design.
“We are anticipating growth in the North Liberty area. And as we’ve seen with enrollment, kids don’t always come to us in neat packages with the numbers just right as they move up through the grades. (The additions) could give us growth on both sides of the building.”

“We will have additional classroom space to meet student instructional needs in a positive learning environment,” said Brown in an email after the meeting.

Current enrollment at Van Allen for K-6 is 489 students. In addition, the elementary school also serves 27 preschool students. Projected enrollment for the year 2022-2023 is 527 based on the school’s current attendance area.

According to Brown, there are plans to rezone the attendance areas in North Liberty and Coralville beginning this spring. Additional students will likely be zoned into the Van Allen Elementary attendance area to help with projected elementary population growth.

“North Liberty enrollment projections for the school-aged population taken from the U.S. Census (2000-2010) shows an increase of 122 percent. Coralville increased 29 percent,” said Brown.

Van Allen Elementary School was Iowa’s first LEED certified public school. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a set of rating systems for the design, construction, operation and maintenance of greens buildings intended to help building owners be environmentally responsible and use resources efficiently. Van Allen received a silver LEED certification, and features natural lighting, recycled building materials, geothermal heating and cooling, and natural landscaping. Neumann Monson expects to preserve LEED certification with completion of the project.

The board will hold a public hearing on the final project design in April. Once the design is approved, Neumann Monson expects the bidding documents to be prepared for distribution to contractors by April 24, and returned by May 16. Construction is to begin June 1, with a construction completion date not later than June 30, 2015.

~ Written for the North Liberty Leader.

Categories
Writing

The Dam Breaks

Checking the Earliblaze apples on June 26, 2023.

The cartomancer drew an Ace of Spades, indicating things that have been in disarray in my life may be coming together. After mild spells of undiagnosed dizziness today and yesterday, I feel the dam breaking and am ready to portage to the other side as the impoundment pool is released. That means I will return to writing my autobiography soon.

I sent the first half to four friends from whom I hope to hear feedback. Two have responded and two are married and will respond together when both finish reading. The feedback garnered thus far has been invaluable.

The next decision is whether to work on the part just reviewed or work to get the rest of it up to the same level of completion. The second part is problematic in that there are multiple narrative threads which represent a lot of work. At the same time, revising what was reviewed makes some sense while the feedback is fresh.

In part two there will be the experiences with family before our child attended formal school. Those are the most important years and they are over before we realize it. It is important to capture some of those fleeting essences while we can. We brought her home from the hospital to Cedar Rapids, Iowa where we lived the first 30 months, then moved to the Calumet region of Indiana where she started Montessori School, followed by public schools. We moved to Big Grove Township in 1993. That’s one narrative.

I lived through the post-Reagan years of turmoil in the workplace and have things to say through the frame of living in the Calumet and recruiting truck drivers and mechanics. More than anything, in interviewing some 10,000 people, I learned and felt directly the pain Reagan’s initiatives put so many working people through. I want to tell that story.

The challenge of being a writer intensified with the advent of computer technology. Of what was this new tool capable? What were realistic expectations? How did it change the way I wrote? How did writing in public change from my first letter to the editor in 1974 until today? Another narrative worth exploring.

During my career in transportation I traveled all around the country. I spent the most time in Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and other states. I used to bring a magnet home from each new place and filled up the front of the home refrigerator with them. I spent time with some of the poorest people in the country and with large corporations far removed from the reality most of us know. Sorting that out will be a big task in itself and seems worth doing.

There is a lot in front of me. It appears to be in the cards for me to get going again. I can feel it. I am ready.